Home?

Remember the children's book Are You My Mother?

We could have written the sequel Are You My House?

But, (drumroll please...)

In February, after looking at so many houses - in town, out of town, with acreage, new and old - since summer, we decided to go with this white 1940's abode.

It has a red brick back porch with "X" detailed railing. I love the "X" detail. So farmhouse. So retro. So charming.

An adorable carport. With the "X" detail repeated. (Can a carport be adorable?)

The back of the house has a tired wooden arbor struggling to remain upright under the weight of ancient Wisteria vines. Who doesn't love an arbor dripping with royal purple Wisteria blooms?

The front view again, from the corner and through the leafless winter trees. Mostly Post Oaks (Quercus stellata), with some Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana), some Redbud (Cercis canadensis), Live Oaks (Quercus virginiana), and a lot of Jasminum humilis, a sweet old fashioned shrub that does a terrific job of screening the street.

The "woods!" I'm picturing secret gardens and teepees and hide-and-seek and imaginations at work back here.

 And it has a darling cottage.

We think it has potential. 1.7 acres. In town, so no cows allowed. (frown) We can't wait to......do something with it. We're not sure what. Tear it down? Add on? Remodel? The possibilities abound. And our imaginations run wild. Well, okay, my imagination runs. His does what his does.

I just love tile installed all the way up the wall from the counter to the ceiling.
Like this:

Often there is a backsplash that extends from the counter up to the upper cabinets. The cabinets give a reason for ending the tile. That's just fine.

But with open shelves, it's best to keep the tile going all the way up, behind the shelves, as shown so beautifully in these kitchens.

1. Palmer Weiss design on House of Turquoise blog

2. Canadian House&Home

3. House Beautiful

4. Desire To Inspire

5. Pure Style Home

6. Decorpad

 New Kitchen Elevation and Inspiration:

The proposed sink wall with upper cabs and fir down removed. New open shelves added. Old Tiffany style pendant removed. New red pendant added. Existing lower cabs painted turquoise.
(my sketch)

New open shelves stained like these.
(Ian Cairl designed kitchen in Elle Decor)

Paint the lower cabinets a similar color to these.
(www.john-lewis.co.uk/kitchen-shaker)

Progress!

Okay. FINALLY.

We're making some progress.

Here are some pics of the kitchen when we looked at the house, followed by photos after this week's demolition work.

I could dance a jig. 

Yay! Yay! And hooray!

The cute little banquet behind the peninsula and next to the little random microwave cabinet.

The banquette. The peninsula removed. It was just so awkward. It really opens up the space. But I do really need the storage and work surface. Oh well.

The sink wall on the day we closed. The window opens into the breezeway / sunroom / foyer. 

The sink wall after demo. We removed the upper cabs to open the space up. I'm so happy there is wood behind it. And we were holding our breath to see if the V-groove paneling on the ceiling continued behind the fir down and it does. Awesome. So, no patching needed there.

The view from the breezeway door to the peninsula island and the sink wall. Cluttered.

The view today. 

The very awkward stove / refrigerator wall. There was a tiled wall between the stove and the refrigerator. Our refrigerator won't fit there. They must have had a larger stove back in the day. Above the stove is a huge vent hood.

And today, with the wall removed. And the overhead wall + vent hood.

Oh yeah.

home
sweet
home



so we moved. to another city. shopped real estate looking for a new home. we agreed on almost all our new home requirements. (i wanted cows. he didn't.)
couldn't find exactly what we wanted.

we found a site. cute old house. not in great shape. but loved the site. and loved the
location location location.

we began working with an architect to build something new.
we'd build just what we wanted and couldn't find.

we grew more and more excited. our dear young architect really gets it. and has great insight and terrific, fresh but down to earth ideas. sometimes reigning us in, sometimes broadening our ideas and pushing the limits. a great partnership i think.

and now, a few months later, and a few things have changed. we're still renting. we're still in the temporary, we'll-live-there-for-2-months-max house. 9 months later.